Ester is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Fairbanks, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population in the CDP was 2,422 at the 2010 census, although there are only about a dozen homes in the village itself. The Ester Camp Historic District is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Ester was founded as a gold mining camp in the early 1900s, and the economy has focused on mining and services for miners. The Ester Community Association was founded in 1941, and continues to work for the welfare of the community, e.g. establishing and maintaining the Ester Community Park and sponsoring an annual Fourth of July parade. There are several small businesses in Ester, including two saloons, a publishing house, a jewelry maker, hand crafted soap maker, and local artisans. The Ester Volunteer Fire Department, John Trigg Ester Library, Ester Historic Society, and Ester Post Office serve residents in Ester and surrounding areas. There is also a convenience store and secular chapel on the outskirts of the village. Many artists, writers, and musicians reside in Ester, and the local art and music scene has thrived for many years.
Eagle is a city on the south bank of the Yukon River near the Canada–US border in the Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, Alaska, United States. It includes the Eagle Historic District, a U.S. National Historic Landmark. The population was 86 at the 2010 census. Every February, Eagle hosts a checkpoint for the long-distance Yukon Quest sled dog race.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks is a public land-grant research university in College, Alaska; a suburb of Fairbanks. It is a flagship campus of the University of Alaska system. UAF was established in 1917 and opened for classes in 1922. Originally named the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, it became the University of Alaska in 1935. Fairbanks-based programs became the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1975.
The George C. Thomas Memorial Library, also known as the North Star Borough Library is a historic former library building at 901 1st Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska. Built in 1909 with funding from philanthropist George C. Thomas, this log building served Fairbanks as its public library until 1977, when the Noel Wien Public Library was opened. This building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978 as the site of a key conference in 1915 between Alaska Native leaders and federal government representatives, at which the Native leaders pressed a number of issues, including the long-running matter of native land claims, which would not be resolved until the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska.
The Immaculate Conception Church is a historic church and former cathedral at 115 N. Cushman Street in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States.
The Atwood Campus Center is the student center of Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Alaska. It is a two-story square building 113 feet (34 m) on each side, elevated on a podium extending ten or more feet to each side. It is flanked by two residence halls, which, although also 25 feet (7.6 m) in height, have three stories. This complex was designed by Edward Durell Stone and built in 1966, when the school was known as Alaska Methodist University. This complex has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its significance as the site of a major 1971 conference of more than 600 Alaska Native representatives, at which they formally accepted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, landmark legislation which fundamentally altered the handling of land ownership and use in the state, particularly with respect to native title, which had long clouded many real estate transfers.
The Sullivan Roadhouse is a restored historic traveler's accommodation, operated as a museum in Delta Junction, Alaska. The roadhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The Chatanika Gold Camp is a historic gold mining camp at Mile 27¾ of the Steese Highway in Chatanika, Alaska. The camp is set on about 49 acres (20 ha) overlooking Cleary Creek, and consists of thirteen buildings as well as a scattering of old mining tools and equipment. The largest of the buildings are two bunkhouses, finished in corrugated metal. The camp was built in 1925 by the Fairbanks Exploration Company (FEC), which also dug the nearby Davidson Ditch to supply water for the operation of the gold dredges. The Chatanika Camp was the largest of the FEC's mining camps in the Fairbanks area. Five of the surviving buildings date to the initial construction period.
The Chena Pump House, also known just as the Pump House Restaurant, is a restaurant at 796 Chena Pump Road in Fairbanks, Alaska. The restaurant is located in the shell of a 1933 pumping station established by the Fairbanks Exploration Company, Alaska's largest gold mining operator at the time. The pump house was used to provide water to dredges operating on Cripple Creek in the Ester area. The building was abandoned by the company in 1958, and was enlarged and converted into a restaurant in 1978. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The Old City Hall, now the Fairbanks Distilling Company, is a historic civic building at 410 Cushman Street in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is a two-story Art Deco structure, built out of reinforced concrete in 1935 as a fireproof alternative to the city's previous city hall. The building is roughly T-shaped, with quoining patterns incised in the corners and bands of decoration on a parapet level. The building was originally built to house city offices as well as police and fire stations; the entrances to the fire equipment bays on Cushman Street have been filled in with wood framing and siding. The building was enlarged by extensions to the rear twice, once before 1950, and once after the 1967 floods. The city moved its offices to the adjacent Main School in 1994; the building then housed the Fairbanks Community Museum until it was acquired by Fairbanks Distilling Company in July 2014.
The Mary Lee Davis House is a historic house at 410 Cowles Street in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is now the Alaska Heritage House, a bed and breakfast inn. It is a 1-1/2 story bungalow-style house, set at the northern corner of Cowles and 5th Avenue in a residential area of the city. The exact construction date of the house is uncertain: it was probably complete by 1916, but construction may have begun as early as 1906; it is acknowledged as the city's oldest occupied residence. The unfinished house was purchased by writer Mary Lee Davis and her husband, who finished the building and added a number of its distinctive touches, including the city's first residential coal heating system. After a period of ownership by the Fairbanks Exploration Company, during which it was home to company executives, it went through a succession of owners before being converted to a bed and breakfast.
The Fairbanks Exploration Company was the major economic force in the growth of Fairbanks, Alaska during its gold rush years in the early 20th century. In the 1920s the company built a number of housing units for its workers. A cluster of at least eight of these is known to have survived on the east side of Illinois Street, of which four have retained historical integrity. Located at 505, 507, 521, and 523 Illinois Street, they are all similarly-built Bungalow-style wood frame buildings, 1-1/2 stories in height, with a hip roof and projecting hipped wings. The complex includes a five-stall garage which served all four houses, as well as two greenhouses. At the time of their listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, this group of houses was being rehabilitated for use as a bed and breakfast inn.
The Fairbanks Exploration Company Machine Shop is a historic machine shop in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. Located behind the Fairbanks Exploration Company administration building at 612 Illinois Street, it is a large single-story steel-frame structure, built in 1927 to serve the company's nearby gold mining operations. Its easternmost section is 16 feet (4.9 m) high, while that on the west is 20 feet (6.1 m) high, in order to accommodate belt-driven equipment and cranes. A tall double door at the center of the east facade is the main entrance. The front of the building housed large belt-driven lathes, while the center had a welding shop, drill presses, and a tool room. A blacksmithy in the back had a sand floor. The building was used by the F.E. Company between 1927 and 1964.
The Fairbanks Exploration Company Manager's House, also known as The White House and the Sisters' Convent, is a historic house at 757 Illinois Street in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is a three-story wood frame structure, five bays wide, with a side gable roof, clapboard siding, and a post-and-beam foundation. An ell extends from the center of the rear. The house was built in 1935-36 by the Fairbanks Exploration Company to house its local vice president and general manager. It is the first Colonial Revival house built in Fairbanks, and is one of the state's finest examples of the style.
The Old Federal Building is a historic government building at Cushman Street and 3rd Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska. When it was built in 1933, it was the most northern instance of concrete construction in the United States. It is a large building with three full-height floors and two smaller penthouse levels. The building's Art Deco styling includes V-shaped grooves set in pilasters that separate columns of windows and aluminum panels. The grooves are repeated in concrete spandrels above the top row of windows. Interior decoration includes terrazzo flooring, copious use of marble in walls and floors, and a pressed copper ceiling in the courtroom. The building was designed by Washington, DC architect George N. Ray, and built by William "Mac" MacDonald, who also later built the Federal Building in Nome. It originally housed the federal court, post office, and other federal government offices, and the decision to locate it in Fairbanks was critical to the rise of the city's importance; it now houses private offices.
The Lacey Street Theatre building, now hosting the Fairbanks Ice Museum, is an Art Deco architectural showpiece theatre located at 500 Second Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was designed by noted theatre designer B. Marcus Priteca, and built in 1939 by C.W. Hufeisen for Austin E. "Cap" Lathrop. It was one of a chain of movie theaters built by Lathrop across Alaska, and was one of only two in Fairbanks into the 1960s. It closed in 1981, and was repurposed to house the museum in 1992.
The Patrick B. Cole Fairbanks City Hall, also known as Main School and Old Main for its previous use as a school building, is located at 800 Cushman Street in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. An Art Deco concrete building, it was built in 1934 to replace the original Fairbanks school, a wooden building constructed in 1907 which burned down in late 1932. As Fairbanks grew exponentially with the military buildup associated with World War II and the Cold War, the building was enlarged in 1939 and again in 1948.
The Oddfellows House, also known as Oddfellows Hall, is a former fraternal clubhouse of Oddfellows at 825 1st Avenue in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is a wood-frame building with two sections, the front one a narrow two-story structure, the rear one a wider single-story structure. Each section has its own gable roof, although they do briefly align. The building was built in 1907 by Madame Renio, a fortune teller, and initially housed a clinic and residential space in the front and a bathhouse in the rear. The bathhouse business failed after its pipes froze in the winter of 1909–10, and the building was purchased by the local chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). This fraternal organization converted the front space into a kitchen and bathroom, and the rear was converted into a large meeting hall. Under the IOOF's ownership the hall was used by a wide variety of civic and religious organizations, including its sister organization, the Golden North Rebekahs. The IOOF chapter was inactive between the late 1930s and 1945, but the Rebekahs continued to maintain the building, eventually taking ownership in 1967. The Rebekahs disbanded in 2007, and the space was briefly used as a museum; it now houses a retail establishment.
Rainey-Skarland Cabin, also known as Rainey's Cabin, Skarland's Cabin and Ivar's Cabin, is a historic log cabin on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in College, Alaska. A single-story three-room log structure with massive stone fireplace on one gable end, it is used today as extended lodging for a permanent or visiting anthropology faculty member or student.
